Categories
Uncategorized

Prairie Prelude in the Philippines

Update 10/6/20: Sheet music for this song can be downloaded here.

It’s always a mystery to me: who is visiting my website or subscribing to my blog? which songs are they using? where are the songs traveling? YouTube has answered some of these questions, and raised others.

I found out that my song “Prairie Prelude” (see link above for MP3 and sheet music) is used as the soundtrack to a video of a church retreat in Baguio City, Philippines. I guess it’s not entirely surprising that a church in the Philippines is singing my music. After all, it is called the world wide web, and over the years I’ve had communications with people from just about every continent. What seems more unusual is that they chose this particular song. “Prairie Prelude” hasn’t ever been published, has only a one-take-one-mic demo to accompany it, and I’ve never even used it in a worship service. I think it’s a good song that would really shine with the right treatment (Steve Bell, are you listening?) but that time hasn’t come yet. So it just seems odd that someone from the Philippines scrolled through the 50 songs at my congregational song page and was drawn in particular to “Prairie Prelude.” Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s fantastic. Just mysteriously fantastic. Maybe Arielle Hipe who sang the song on the video can help clear up the mystery.

But enough chatter. Here’s the video:

Categories
Church Demos Rock and/or Roll

Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning

On Sunday night Rebecca Jordan Heys preached on the parable of the ten bridesmaids and asked me to conclude the sermon by leading the spiritual “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.” Like many people, I know the song from the popular choral arrangement by Andre Thomas, but it has traveled far and wide, as you can hear in this YouTube video by Blind Willie Johnson and this one by Hot Tuna. In any case, on Friday afternoon as I played around with the song and tried to figure out how best to lead it, I began laying down some tracks in Logic Pro and came up with this little demo.

Categories
Church

Toads in Tiaras

There’s a great song in Sing! A New Creation called “Toda la tierra/All Earth Is Waiting.” (The first phrase in Spanish produces the wonderfully silly sound-alike in English: Toads in Tiaras.) I use it a few times each Advent, but it always feels a little incomplete–like it needs something to soften the somewhat abrupt ending of each verse. So last year I vowed I would write a little refrain for the song to use this year in Advent. It’s just a four bar phrase with a turn around, but it gives the song a chance to breathe. As my composition teacher used to say, “compositions are like buildings–they need doors and windows.” I also wrote a different piano arrangement. Here’s the demo MP3, and below is a picture of the refrain.All Earth Is Waiting, refrain

Categories
Congregational Songs Live Psalms

Rest in the Lord, at Calvin Chapel

My friend Paul Ryan asked me to lead one of the “Sing a New Song” chapels at Calvin College this Fall. I had originally thought I’d introduce one of the songs from the “Global Songs for Worship” collection I’m editing, but as the date got closer I decided to teach my song based on Psalm 127–“Rest in the Lord, My Soul.” This decision wasn’t based (solely) on shameless self-promotion. It’s just that I realized it would be a good opportunity to lead a group of non-musicians through the process of transplanting a Psalm into a particular musical context. In the allotted 25 minutes we talked about the themes and difficulties of the original text, Michael Morgan’s metrical version of the Psalm, and my musical setting of Morgan’s text.

Don’t believe me? Then watch the video! Go to the Calvin Chapel web page, then choose the November 9, 2009 chapel in the scroll bar on the right. At about 4 minutes and 30 seconds into the video I begin my talk.

Categories
Choir Church

My Soul Will Magnify the Lord

As we enter that blessed season known to music ministers as “when will this ever end?” I find myself considering a Magnificat that is near and dear to my heart. I wrote “My Soul Will Magnify the Lord” while I was at Bellefield Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. It’s part of a series of pieces based on the wonderful canticles found in Luke. The ingredients are choir, rhythm section, brass and soloist, all boiled up in a pop/rock/classical/jazz stew. And they’re all blazingly difficult to pull off well. (I’d get published a lot more if I could tame my muse.)

One of the most unusual features of this particular Magnificat is that it ends with the genealogy found in Luke 3. Crazy, you say? Like a fox, I say. No, really, it is strangely powerful to hear Mary sing about God’s mercy extending from generation to generation, and then hear their names sung one after another. One choir member at the time thought the idea was so unique that I should patent it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good recording from the Bellefield performance, so all I can share with you as the “choir of Greg” version.  You can see the music here. I might include it in this year’s Lessons & Carols service on December 13 at 6pm at Church of the Servant, so if you’re in the Grand Rapids area you should plan to join us.

Categories
electronic Rock and/or Roll

GR Press Phone Message

Last week someone wrote a nasty letter to the editor about a friend from church. It’s a long story, but what it boils down to is that a group of people in Grand Rapids are poised and ready to write mean-spirited letters to the editor of the GR Press any time they read key words such as “evolution,” “homosexuality,” or “President Obama.” But I guess they’re not the only ones who feel they are saving society one letter at a time–I was lured into the fray and wrote what I believe to be a beacon of reason in a turbulent sea of idiocy.

I was pleasantly surprised that one of these folks actually left a phone message for me at the church letting me know just how misguided my letter to the editor was. Really, it ranks up there with being lumped in with Robert Webber and the Antichrist by Jimmy Swaggart’s wife, Frances

In any case, I decided that this little aural work of art needed a frame, so I created a bed of music to accompany her message. Of course, I’ve edited out some of the details like the caller’s name and phone number, but you’ll get a pretty good idea of her rhetoric by listening to this MP3. It will also give you an opportunity to dance.

Categories
Production music

Chalk Music

My wife, Amy, works for Calvin College‘s interview program, InnerCompass, researching topics and preparing the hosts. A while back she convinced the producers of the show to interview Rob Bliss, mastermind behind such social experiments as Zombie walks and flying thousands of airplanes off downtown Grand Rapids buildings. At the time of the interview, he was organizing “Chalk Flood,” which brought young and old to their knees–to make chalk drawings on the sidewalks of the city. Very cool.

As work on the Bliss InnerCompass episode progressed, it became clear that the show needed to include a montage of footage from the Chalk Flood event, and that music was needed to match the fast-paced, playful feel of the footage. Even casual followers of this blog will realize that this was an opportunity I couldn’t refuse. But the turn-around time was tight–as in, it needed to be finished in a day or two or else the editors would use some non-descript, pre-packaged music like they use in used car ads.

I quickly decided that the music style should be frenetic minimalism. But I didn’t have time to compose one of my intricate, evolving pieces like Crossfade. It would probably have to be comprised of only percussion. As I thought about it, it struck me: what better percussion instrument could be used than pieces of chalk? Chalk produces a wonderful, visceral sandblock sound when you’re writing with it, and a clear ping when tapped against cement. So that morning I went out into the garage, set up my recording equipment, found the most resonant chalk in the boys’ collection, and began scratching/tapping out a rhythm that had been on my mind.

The result is the montage and music that begins at 1:12 of this online episode of InnerCompass.

When Groups Play – Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.

Categories
Church Demos

At the Cross (I Know a Place)

One of my favorite praise songs is “At the Cross” by Randy and Terry Butler. It’s simple, singable and has meaningful lyrics. But, like many praise songs I’ve never been convinced by the piano arrangements that appear with it in hymnals. Since my church relies so heavily on the piano for accompaniment, I decided to write a new piano accompaniment for the song. Take a listen to the robotic, Finalified MP3 of the arrangement.

Categories
Church Finale demo

ALLITERATION: a new hymn tune in 8787D

Update: Sheet music for this tune (still waiting for a text to call its own)
is now available at gregscheer.com.

Hymn tunes are funny things. They are compact little musical expositions that are given a few dozen measures to introduce and develop a theme. But more than that they are to be sung. A hymn tune may be musical genius in miniature, but if a congregation can’t sing it, it has missed its mark. I wrote the tune ALLITERATION as an alternative to RUSTINGTON. It gave me a chance to work out a few musical ideas, and now it’s your chance to pair it with an 8787D text and give it a try in a real life setting. Listen to the MP3, download and print the PDF (at the link above), and then write a text to go with it!

Categories
Demos

Crossing the Jordan

When I lived in Tallahassee I played a lot of mandolin and took part in “bluegrass night”at a friend’s house. As that music worked its way into my blood, it inevitably came out in the form of a new song: Crossing the Jordan. I have a special fondness for this song, and I hope someday someone will take it upon themselves to perform and record it better than I do on this demo. It could be a bluegrass group, or a gospel quartet, or…